In the past few months we have begun discussing whether or not to add humanoids to our store. I have been kind of sh*t talking humanoids for a few years, saying that “It is WAY too early! These companies are way too early, and it needs another five years… blah, blah, blah.” But what do I know? I just work here.
I do believe it will be another few years at a minimum before we are anywhere near any realistic ROI for companies attempting to deploy humanoids in a production environment. BUT I think we are 100% here in terms of doing actual use-case scenario research. Projects like Amazon testing Agility’s Digit in their warehouse is actually early stage R&D testing masquerading as “deployment” for flashy PR article headlines. Since we supply bleeding edge tech to research markets the argument can be made that the technology is ready for small companies like ours to start adding them to our line of research platforms. But you won’t be seeing humanoids doing actual useful work for a while yet.
I saw this article comparing all the top humanoids currently in development and/or close to commercialization and it looks like a pretty decent line up of contenders for the great humanoid race of the 2020’s grand AI tech boom.
With the adoption of any new technology, it goes through a few standard phases. Early in the cycle, one of those phases is when a dozen or so companies all show up, coming out of stealth, to attack the same space, each trying out their different approaches to commercialization. There is a bloody battle as they all fight for market space and test their different business plans. It is a fight to gain market share and viability for their specific way of approaching the market. It is a race to generate enough sales to develop either self-sustained growth or more investment.
I always find this phase SUPER interesting because you get to watch a bunch of different ideas battle it out in the open market. Some companies focus on product quality, while others eschew making something perfect and attack with marketing, trying to blitz their way into dominance and then worrying about improving the product.
Some companies aim for only industrial markets, looking for just a few sales with deep-pocket customers and developing partnerships where they have quick development cycles as they tailor their products to specific niches. Other companies prefer to go to a more commercial market and make a more generalized product with broader appeal, hoping to hit lower price points through economies of scale.
In Robotics, we see different kinds of feature sets being tried out. Different servo configurations, different choices in motor speed and strength, different actuator types, different sensors… There are many, many ways to make the same type of robot, and the right or wrong choice on something specific can make or break a product very fast.
For example, in humanoids, one company may decide to focus on lifting strength while another chooses to focus on vision and hand-eye coordination. Company A may spend all their money on researching servos and designing their own in-house, even coming up with novel patented designs never used before. Company B may decide to buy off-the-shelf servos and settle on a lighter carrying payload while putting all their robonerd engineers on camera optimization and arm/hand kinematics. Both put their very different approaches into the market, and we get to sit back and see what happens. Who was right, and who screwed up?
If the market values the humanoids picking up large boxes and carrying them around with a low need for high-precision placement, then company A wins. If it turns out that the market really wanted the humanoid to stand over a desk and sort things, then company B made the right call, and they won the majority of the market, got more sales, and got more investment, while company A had a fire sale on their patents.
No one has a crystal ball, and it’s incredibly hard to predict what the market will do or what it wants. The reason is that the market itself rarely knows what it wants. So the market tests new technology in all kinds of different ways until something clicks and an ROI is realized. This begins to fund the new technology to grow in those particular directions and influences the evolution of products. It is in this Darwinian capitalist way that companies and their products either thrive or die.
When I see a new lineup of humanoids like the ones in this article by Freethink, what I hear is a starting gun going off. A fascinating race of a dozen companies all trying to beat each other to the finish line, where the survivors get to share in the new pot of gold when a market emerges. It always starts with a large crowd of competitors and a bunch of new products hitting the market all at once. Then, they drop off one by one until only two or three make it to the end to battle each other for the next decade. As a nerdy entrepreneur, this is my version of the NFL. I like to grab a bucket of popcorn and armchair quarterback as we watch the game unfold and try to predict who we think will win and who will lose and why. So, let the humanoid games begin.
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